Tale of the Inn Lich
by IvanOoze
Summary: Why is there a lich in the back of the inn? A forgotten character from Baldur's Gate, finally revealed.


ACT I

Robert de Sade McEvilschtein (or, Ro-BER for short) was a supremely powerful wizard who lived on the Sword Coast. For many decades, tales of his destruction and wantonness spread across the nearly villages, in hushed whispers to children in their beds. However, being a mere human, even a wizard as powerful as Rober could not resist the passage of time. Pondering a lifetime of evil and sodomy, he came across one of his old stomping grounds -- Baldur's Gate. The bustling city had everything an evil wizard needed -- spell components, scrolls, and delicious honey mead. One particular inn on the north side of town always caught his fancy, as even in all of his worldly travels with Teleport Without Error, he had yet to find a place that served better honey mead than this place.

"OMG this mead is amazing!" Rober beamed, as this elven-derived concoction was one of the only things that could make him happy. Leaning in towards the barkeep, he whispered, "Ya know, I tried to get the recipe for this stuff once. But the elves wouldn't tell me. So I had to sodomize the whole village and cast Fire Storm on it." Rober continued to down his mead. "I can alter reality to better suit my needs, but I canNOT, for the life of me, recreate this stuff under polymorph. Can you believe that? I mean once I turned a hobo into a grape for looking at me funny, but this -- this mead...I just don't get it."  
The barkeep laughed nervously while polishing a glass. While Rober was really freaking evil, he always paid his tab. And it was actual real money, not like the time Elminster paid with polymorphed gold, which turned back into sawdust 5 hours later. The mead was a vendor item, brought in weekly by the elves. Rober had since given up on trying to coerce the recipe from the fey folk, since genocide tends to wreck a perfectly good supply chain.  
"I'm not getting any younger," Rober thought out loud. "I'm really gonna miss everything -- the sacrificial babies, the searing righteous fire from my fingertips, but most of all...I'm gonna miss this mead."  
Pondering the gravity of his situation, he suddenly had a great idea. As people often do, when their int score is 18. "I heard my old wizzy-buds back at the conclave have a way to make people immortal. I gotta say, I just wanna drink this stuff forever. I bet I wouldn't even get a hangover!" A few coins flew from his pouch at his will, and in 0.2 seconds, Rober was gone.

ACT II

Within a moment, he appeared within the walls of the lab of the Dark Wizard's Conclave where he first learned his craft. An elderly, bearded Archmage sat quietly at a desk, pondering a tome.

"Rober...I see you've returned. How long has it been, 15 years?"

"Twenty," corrected Rober.

"Why have you come here, after you abandoned us long ago? You had such potential in you, and you gave it all up when you stole my spellbook and raped my dog. Why, Rober, why?" The archmage's face squirmed.

"Well first of all, the dog was TOTALLY asking for it." Rober stated this matter-of-factly, as if he was discussing the weather. "And second of all, you would have done the same thing to me. Remember, being evil and all?"

The Archmage, not amused, stroked the side of his robe and said, "Alright, Rober, clearly you've returned for something. Let's just get this over and done with, so I can go kill your family afterwards."

Rober, not to be taken aback, said, "Yes, I am here for a reason today, and...what, kill my family? Joke's on you, asshole, I already killed my family! I wore their skin as a Halloween costume, and then recreated them with simulacrums, so it's like I still have a family, but they do exactly what I want without bugging me about doing stuff like cleaning out their gutters."

Disdainfully, the Archmage replied, "Rober, you could have been one of the most powerful wizards in the world. Why did you...retire?"  
"Dude, I gotta tell you," Rober continued, "First of all, I wish people would stop getting on my ass about retiring. I figured I was done leveling after level 21. Do you know how many humans in the entire multiverse make it to level 21? Not many. Most adventurers get their faces eaten by carrion crawlers well before they hit level 5. and if a wight doesn't sap all of their abilities by level 10, they're doing good. Me? I told the githyanki and the githzerai called their mommas fat. So that whole thing they got going on...that was all me." Quick to turn the tables, Rober sharply said, "What have YOU done with your whole life that's so great?"  
"I geas peasants to try and kill Drizzt. They invariably fail...painfully."  
"Oh, that's just mean. Well, once I made an entire druid enclave cast plant growth on opium, just so I could get rich."  
"Not bad, Rober. But I will have you know that I invented 14 new torture methods in my own lifetime. Did you know that if you Hold someone and fire a Ray of Frost up their nose, it freezes their entire brain?"  
"Dang. Gotta remember that one, here I've just been wasting my time throwing paralyzed gnomes into the water. Well not only do I use Gate to routinely rape a succubus, I got into this gig into the first place, just because I heard you guys could stop time! But once I realized that Time Stop didn't allow you to touch people, I really just gave up. Because let me tell you, while five rounds is enough time to look up a skirt, it totally doesn't let you get off. Clearly, not my best work at all."  
After the initial dick-waving had ended, Rober finally got to his point.

"I came here today because I heard you guys could make me immortal. Look, I figure you do this for me, I do some lame-o chore for you, because I'm gonna have plenty of time. Then when you die of old age, I can dance on your grave and fuck your skull. Cool?"

The Archmage raised an eyebrow, as he knew exactly what Rober was getting at. "I do possess...a ritual. It will strike your soul asunder, but you will have everlasting life and power beyond all means."  
"Oh nine hells yes!" Rober was starting to get excited, thinking about all the things he could do with immortality. He was completely oblivious as the Archmage continued.

"But in return, you will have to perform a service for the Conclave."  
(OMG I can drink all the honey mead I want)  
"We have come across a powerful weapon, forged from the light of the sun itself..."  
(I bet in the future, there will be horseless carriages, and drow women will have two dicks and three assholes)  
"...and you shall be the guardian of this weapon, for it must never fall into the hands of the holy and righteous..."  
(HONEY FUCKING MEAD)  
"...and you shalt never let this Sunblade strike you, lest you feel the wrath of its flame coursing through your eternity."

Blinking from his deep thought, Rober said, "Wha, you done yet? Can we get started now, because I have a LOT of mead to drink. Srsly."  
Sighing, the Archmage said, "All I need from you is your little finger."

"My WHA?"

"Your right little finger. Your essence will be housed in this, your phylactery, as this is the key to your eternity."  
Balking, Rober said, "Hey, wait a minute...don't I need that to cast spells? You yourself taught me V,S, and M. I mean, it's not like I can take the Still Spell feat, as that hasn't been invented yet."

The Archmage replied, "Rober, you always assumed the obvious. The gestures of spellcasting were all about wrists and arms, not fingers. And besides, didn't you once use a demilich for a toilet? They are just floating heads, and they still retain great arcane power."

"Good point, let's do this shit." Rober steeled himself for the potentially painful amputation, but pain was no stranger to him. He once tried to oralize a Marilith, which was going to be pretty awesome until he found out the hard way that it had fangs. So the loss of a finger was something he could deal with, especially since he still had a pound of flesh in cold storage, if he ever needed to clone himself.  
The painful ritual lasted 6 days and 7 nights. Rober didn't really know what it involved, since he was technically dead for most of it. But when he arose anew, he knew that it all paid off. Amidst tattered robes and burning eye sockets, he felt a twinge of something he had never felt before. He felt...infinity.  
"I AM REBORN! I POSSESS UNMATCHED COSMIC POWE...wait...I have no flesh."

Looking down at his new appearance, Rober realized that he was now a lich. Besides the immunity to charm and sleep spells, and an irrational fear of holy symbols, he seemed somewhat disturbed by the fact that he no longer had skin, hair, nails, or any internal organs at all. Not that things like lungs or blood mattered to him now.

"I have no fucking flesh, what the hell?"  
The Archmage stood before him despondently, and sighed, "Rober, if you really want some flesh, just cast Change Self. Or Phantasmal Force. Or even Shapechange. You're a lich now, one of the most feared abominations in all creation. Now take the Sunblade and your phylactery, and guard them well. Off with you now."

The Archmage held out both items before him. Rober trembled uneasily at the sight of the Sunblade. He had no idea why, but this weapon deeply disturbed him. However, he decided not to be such a damn pussy, and he took it from the Archmage, wrapped it in a cloth, and set it on Tenser's Floating Disc for the time being.  
"You'll need your phylactery as well, Rober. Your body can only be destroyed through the destruction of your little finger here -- where your soul resides in exchange for all the power you possess."

"Wait, so as long as this thing survives, I'm okay? So I don't actually need it, I could, like, hide it somewhere?" Rober said inquisitively, since this whole eternal undead thing was still new to him.

"Yes, Rober. Although I wouldn't just leave this lying around anywhere. Resourceful adventurers have a tendency to find these things at inopportune times."

"But again, to be totally clear, I will NEVER actually need this thing, right?"

"Yes, Rober, now just take it and get out of my sight." The Archmage was visibly annoyed.

"Okay...just hand it to me and let me see tha...IMPRISONMENT!" As Rober reached forward to take the item, he unleashed one of his favorite spells, Imprisonment. It was essentially murder with no evidence and no mess, when Rober needed more elegant solutions for dealing with elected officials and no-longer-virgin elven wenches. How was he supposed know that 90 years old was considered pedophilia to elves, really?  
Now the Archmage would be perpetually entombed beneath the earth, along with Rober's soul, safe with him forever.

ACT III

After shoving all of the Archmage's belongings into Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion, Rober headed back to the one place he wanted to go to all along -- Baldur's Gate. While he no longer had any sort of biological or ecological functions of any sort, he still had all of his memories. And most of them involved honey mead. After casting Alter Self so he wouldn't scare the bartender, Rober came back to the one place where he truly felt at home. The small inn on the north side of Baldur's Gate.

"One honey mead, right away!"  
Rober drank as only an insatiable abomination could. He kept paying and drinking, not realizing that he couldn't really get buzzed or really taste anything. In his search for the warm satisfaction of honey mead and mortality, he fell into a stupor. Not a drunken stupor, but a chronological stupor where time has no meaning. Without biological functions, sleep, or aging, the notions of time and consciousness lost all meaning to him as he continued to pay and drink. The Archmage had enough money for 3 lifetimes, so money wasn't an issue. Rober kept drinking and paying every day until the innkeeper died of old age. And his son after him, and his son after him. Rober had become a permanent fixture at the inn. Sometimes, a particular innkeeper would try to get tough and ask Rober to leave, but this was usually met with threats of being Soul Trapped into a gem, and then having said gem shoved up a minotaur's ass. Soon the innkeeper(s) realized that Rober really wasn't going to go anywhere, so they just let him live in an unused back room, forever drinking and occasionally disintegrating a rat. They knew the mead would keep coming, since the mead delivery elves would live for thousands of years. Since liches really have no sense of fashion or interior decorating, Rober just threw the Sunblade into a drawer in the back of the room, slumped into a dark corner, and continued to drink his mead. Sometimes he would hear the bedlam and bustle of people in the bar, and wonder what mortals were doing these days, but it didn't even really matter anymore. Rober had everything he wanted right here, and nothing was going to change.

Until one day...a group of six adventurers happened across the inn.

"Damn, I gotta piss!" Rober slid open the door to his back room, and stumbled out towards the chamber pot. Not realizing that liches don't need to go to the bathroom, Rober's perpetual backroom-dwelling had become like Plato's Cave -- reality and memory intersected until neither was distinct.

"They did not notice my theft." The lead female adventurer, a striking human woman of about 23, eagerly picked pockets while her companions watched on. A large bald man petted a hamster quietly, while an elven woman delicately sipped a glass of fey wine. A gnome tinkered with various gadgets clumsily while a red-robed mage sat pensively and stared forward.  
Rober, having long forgotten to recast Alter Self every day, quietly slid back into his backroom. His bones clanked together as the door slid closed. This caught the attention of a stern-eyed, inquisitive man wielding a large sword.

"My ladyship, I think I just saw...a foul undead being! Did anyone see that? Innkeeper? Innkeeper, do you know what evil lies in your very walls?"

The innkeeper, busying himself with many customers, didn't really have time to chat, so he quickly shouted over his shoulder, "Yeah, that's just Bob. Don't pay any attention to him, he's harmless."

The stern man rose from his seat with a start. "Harmless? How dare you to presume that the foul stench of evil is harmless? As Torm is my witness I will smite it from the very face of existence!" Looking around angrily for where Rober may have gone, the man's armor clanked as he stomped around.

The lead adventurer, pockets full of gems, scrolls, and random weapons that peasants seem to carry, quietly poked a back wall in the inn. It slid open, and revealed Rober standing in the middle of a small back room. The adventurer, seasoned from many levels of treasure hunting, instantly shot her gaze to the drawer where the Sunblade was housed. In the past, she knew that she could often run past her foes unseen, relieve them of their valuables, and then be off without so much as a stir. She had snuck past illithids in the past, why should this lich be any different? The light-footed heroine dashed by Rober as fast as she could. Rober didn't really care at this point, since humans tend to come and go. The adventurer flung open the drawer and snatched the Sunblade, its luster never dulling even after over 50 years. As she turned away from the drawer in the other direction in one motion, her abruptness got the better of her, as her scabbard knocked the edge of a table, spilling Rober's full mead tankard everywhere.

"YOU SPILLED MY MEAD!!"

The adventurer left the room as quickly as possible, but she was no match for the raaaaaaage of a powerful lich. In a moment, Rober was awakened from his temporal stupor, completely fueled by hate. Dashing out into the main room of the inn, Rober reveled in the chaos, as patrons ran screaming for the door at the sight of his hideous grim visage.  
"TIME STOP!"

Tables crashed and glasses flew through the air in slow motion as Rober watched it all. They would know the true fury of his lifetime, and post-lifetime, all at once.

"FIREBALL!"  
"FIREBALL!"  
"HORRID WILTING!"

Arcane power coursed through his veins, that is, if he still had veins. Rober reveled in the fact that when the time stop ended, many of the humans would not even realize that they have died. Dozens of citizens lay dead at his feet, effectively turned into piles of ash from having all of their water removed and from the searing heat of the fireballs.  
The once-brave adventurers, seared and battered but still alive, ran out the door.

"Oh no they didn't! They can't continue to make saving throws forever!" Rober followed them out the door, lightning streaming from his fingertips. Exiting the inn, he saw that the pandemonium had already spread to the streets of Baldur's Gate. Citizens fled in every direction, mostly getting in each other's way, while guards tried to restore order and guide people about. At that moment, Rober unleashed one of his mightiest spells:

"METEOR SWARM!"

Explosions of celestial proportions littered the town street, killing citizens and guards alike by the dozens, but strangely, not harming any of the buildings. The fleet-footed adventurer and her companions still continued to flee in an orderly fashion, heading straight for the gate out of town. They passed through the gate in almost an instant, and Rober found himself unable to follow. He looked at the searing carnage all around him, realizing how much awesome power he possessed. Bodies littered the streets and surviving citizens continued to scream and run about. Casually walking back into the inn and casting another fireball for good measure to flush out any survivors, Rober picked up a singed chair and went back to drinking his mead alone.

Meanwhile, outside of Baldur's Gate, the six adventurers were still in shock and disarray from being attack by what they could only best describe as an "inn lich." As the elf girl healed the party's wounds, the head adventurer smiled as she held aloft the Sunblade. As she was preparing to proceed on her journey, she finally spoke:

"I don't think we should ever go back to that part of town again."

THE END


End file.
